An enterprise planning system (EPS) may be used by manufacturing companies, distribution companies, and so on, to facilitate managing, for example, supply chain risk. A conventional EPS facilitates planning steady state operations for an enterprise. A conventional EPS may therefore model supply chain entities including, for example, suppliers, manufacturers, distribution channels, warehouses, supply, demand, transportation, and so on. The model may include representations of costs, capacity, and other entity attributes. The model may be extended into the future to deal with a planning interval known as a “planning horizon”. Entity attributes may change over the planning horizon. Some changes may be known (e.g., seasonal fluctuations) while others may be unknown (e.g., plant shutdown due to flu outbreak).
A conventional EPS may use techniques including, for example, linear programming, heuristics, constraint programming, and so on, to build a plan based on the modeled entities. The plan may seek to meet business objectives including minimizing cost, maximizing profit, maximizing customer service, and so on. However, a conventional EPS may be suboptimal with respect to accounting for, simulating, and/or pre-planning for unplanned events including, for example, weather (e.g., hurricane, tornado), civil unrest (e.g., riot, demonstration), political unrest (e.g., coup), shortages, currency fluctuations, “Acts of God” (e.g., tsunami, fire, flood), and so on.
As access to worldwide markets increases and supply and outsourcing opportunities grow, manufacturing and distribution companies continue to expand their operations globally. The global operations may be tuned with respect to minimizing work in progress (WIP), optimizing just in time (JIT) delivery, and so on. Although there are benefits to global operations and streamlined inventory control, there are also global risks that can threaten the success of their operations. To manage these risks, companies may seek to understand the impact of unplanned events on operations. Based on this understanding, companies can then make appropriate investments in the supply chain flexibility and redundancy. These investments may make the difference between success and oblivion.